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Spreading the sail, fitting the battens
Now spread both wing halves out and place the king post between the two cross tube
tensioning cables onto the spigot attached to the keel tube. Make sure the tensioning
cables are not twisted. Finally insert the upper surface battens into the batten
pockets, starting from the wing tips working inwards (left hand side Red, right Green)
and secure them with the batten strings doubled over. The sail can be tensioned
once all the upper surface battens have been fitted.
To tension the wing, the doubled cross tube cable must be pulled rearwards to hook
the front part of the tensioning lever onto the bolt in the attachment rail. Quite a
reasonable amount of pressure is required to achieve this. Finally, the tensioning
lever must be laid back rearwards and secured with the quick pin.
Setting up the Wing
Unless you have ordered the keel tube extension as an optional extra, you will need
a second person to assist with setting the wing up on its control frame. Together with
your helper, one of you at the front the other at the rear, lift the keel tube and unfold
the control frame forwards. The person standing at the front now takes the front lower
rigging wires and attaches the triangular screw gate link onto the retention hook on
the underside of the nose plate. The press button snapper secures the connection
and must be depressed to release the front rigging wires. Finally lower the wing onto
its nose.
Attachment of the additional cross tube retention strop
The Pico can be fitted with an additional cross tube safety strop. For this purpose,
pass the black webbing strap around the back of the control frame head piece, left
and right next to the keel tube towards the nose, and connect it with the webbing
loops above and below the cross tube centre joint, using a screw link karabiner.
Before derigging the wing, this strop must be removed first.
Tensioning the tip struts
The tip struts have a folding mechanism, with which the higher tensioning pressure of
these struts can be easily applied. Always tension the wing before tensioning the tip
struts. To tension the tip struts, unfold the shorter end of the strut towards the end of
the keel tube, placing the end of the strut into the webbing loop on the rear most sail
tip. Finally with an open hand in the sail (be careful not to trap your fingers or palm)
and the other hand on the sail tip, push the hinge of the strut towards the keel tube
until it locks after just going over being straight (geometric lock). The reverse
procedure is required to remove the tip struts.
